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Thursday, 18 February 2016

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - "Arc" EP (Review)

By: Mike Wilcox

Album Type: EP

Date Released:22/01/2016

Label: Relapse Records

A solid EP and an exciting glance as the prospect to come. While
it’s not the ANb sound that we might know, it’s absolutely a sound that anyone
can jump into and with this effort we get grind turned Louisiana Sludge a la
Eyehategod led by vocals from ex Salome member, Kat Katz. And what an effort is
has turned out to be…Now go be a hypocrite and support capitalism
and get your hands on “Arc”. Then turn it up really really fucking loud

“Arc” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1).
Not A Daughter

2).
Deathbed

3).
Gnaw

The Review:

GRINDCORE IS SLOWING DOWN! GRINDCORE IS SLOWING
DOWN! GRINDCORE IS SLOWING DOWN! GRINDCORE IS SLOWING DOWN! ONE MORE TIME!
GRINDCORE IS SLOWING DOWN! Albeit a twisted reference to Iron Reagan,
the message remains: the music by grind artists seems to be slowing down and
taking a more sludge/doom approach. Pig Destroyer offered
us “Mass and Volume”, Dc/NYC’s Magrudergrind are about to let loose their newest effort in
6 years, “II”, another notable departure from the previous grindcore format,
and of course we have “Arc”, the
recent album from the legendary and rather unique act that is Agoraphobic Nosebleed.

Prior to developing a polarized judgment as
everyone else is apt to do, it ought to be noted that “Arc” is one of a series of EPs from ANb meant
to showcase each member. With this effort we get grind turned Louisiana Sludge
a la Eyehategod led by vocals from ex Salome member, Kat Katz. And what an effort is has turned
out to be… The first mental note that the listener might take is the extended
song lengths. “Arc” opens with “Not a Daughter” clocking in at 7:00.
The more EHG sounding of the three track EP, “Not a Daughter” has the feeling that
can only be obtained through many drinks, smokes, a live show, or a combination
of all three. It’s impossible to not jam along with the track. While the music
isn’t especially technical, the biggest difference being the “simple” drum
programming compared to Scott Hull’s previous work, the riffs and changes are
played proficiently, seamlessly, and solidly. You feel the weight of the riff,
the consuming force of the sludge.

“Deathbed”
starts with what sounds like it could have been taken from a Neurosis or SUMAC set, heavy and
pounding rhythms and singular loose and fat notes leading into a purge of sonic
assault. Kat might as well be spewing tar into the audience. Again I am brought
back to my initial though, it really does seem like grindcore is slowing down.
I love it. Many friends and others alike do not. It seems to be getting a very
polarized read. As “Deathbed”
marches on the listener is again brought back to the NoLA sludge sound and
style, which ANb once again delivers in spades.

As “Gnaw”
kicks off and the album instils a kind of closure for this installation of the
aforementioned project by ANb, thousand ton
guitar riffs met with the gripping and soulful vocals of Kat Katz bombard the
listener and again you can’t seem to stop jamming to this album. If you’re
listening to it right now I can almost guarantee that you are headbanging, even
if only a little bit. Even the sparse use of samples, usually at the end of the
tracks, seems slowed down. Drunken sounding words of broken lives and broken
systems compliment the tracks, but there certainly isn’t the sample heavy
feeling that we know ANb and others for.

As the first of these releases, speaking
personally, I am excited to see what else the crew puts out in the series next.
I think that the reality of music is that you can get by playing the same gig,
the same song, the same sounds, for so long until you get tired of it. For many
artists there isn’t a breaking out of that mould, and for some when they do it,
it is more or less a sonic disaster. With the advent of grind into sludge, or
whatever ultimately irrelevant tags you would prefer to use, I see artists
growing and expanding. Sometimes you have to change your approach in order to
better get your point across. It seems that Agoraphobic
Nosebleed does in fact know that, are employing that wisdom, and it
is working really fucking well for them. A solid EP and an exciting glance as
the prospect to come. While it’s not the ANb sound that we might
know, it’s absolutely a sound that anyone can jump into and groove with. Now go
be a hypocrite and support capitalism and get your hands on “Arc”. Then turn it up really really fucking
loud.

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